We went to the Moon as technicians; we returned as humanitarians.
Edgar MitchellRead
It was a beautiful, harmonious, peaceful-looking planet, blue with white clouds, and one that gave you a deep sense of home, of being, of identity. It is what I prefer to call instant global consciousness.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the profound connection humanity has with Earth, evoking a sense of identity and belonging.
Edgar Mitchell reflects on the awe-inspiring view of Earth from space, highlighting how it fosters a feeling of global unity and consciousness among all inhabitants. He suggests that seeing our planet from afar instills a deep appreciation for its beauty and interconnectedness, prompting a sense of identity that transcends borders.
In practice
In a speech about environmental awareness, one might use this quote to express the beauty of our planet.
We went to the Moon as technicians; we returned as humanitarians.
We should be ready to reach out beyond our planet and beyond our solar system to find out what is really going on out there.
We need to make the world safe for creativity and intuition, for it's creativity and intuition that will make the world safe for us.
We're at a point in history were we have to become a part of the neighborhood of inhabited planets, like a neighborhood of a community, which we have not even acknowledged that that community exists up until this point.
You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty.
My view of our planet was a glimpse of divinity.
All the forms of civil polity have been tried by mankind, except one, and that seems to have been reserved in Providence to be realized in America.
Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons.
I think if a physician wrote on a death certificate that old age was the cause of death, he'd be thrown out of the union. There is always some final event, some failure of an organ, some last attack of pneumonia, that finishes off a life. No one dies of old age.
What problem does Pan-Asianism attempt to solve? The problem is how to terminate the sufferings of the Asiatic peoples and how to resist the aggression of the powerful European countries. In a word, Pan-Asianism represents the cause of the oppressed Asiatic peoples.
I started out thinking of America as highways and state lines. As I got to know it better, I began to think of it as rivers.
At the age of twelve I had an attitude toward life that was to endure, that was to make me seek those areas of living that would keep it alive, that was to make me skeptical of everything while seeking everything, tolerant of all and yet critical. The spirit I had caught gave me insight into the suffering of others, made me gravitate toward those whose feelings were like my own, made me sit for hours while others told me of their lives, made me strangely tender and cruel, violent and peaceful.
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